– Neuheisel stated that the 49ers interview in the early part of 2003 was the last time that he intended to check out other jobs. He said that he intended to stay at UW for a long time and have a Don-James-esque run. God, I’m still laughing. How can he say that with a straight face? He’s a master liar.

– He also said that he thought the program was in good shape and ready for resurgence. That’s also laughable. Sloppy. Soft. Uninspired. Those are the three words you’d use to describe the Huskies for much of the 2002 season, his final year at UW. Those attributes were simply the team taking on the persona of its coach. Not only is he a liar but he’s delusional. Good luck, Bruins, you’re going to need it.

– Just to take that thought a step further, if Neuheisel would have stayed at UW, we might have won 7-8 games in 2003 (Gilby won 6) and we might have won 3-4 games in 2004 (Gilby won 1). Remember, in 2004, our QB options because of Neuheisel’s master recruiting were Casey Paus and a very raw Isaiah Stanback. They might have been slightly better players under Neuheisel’s tutelage but not significantly better. The bottom line is that any notion that the team was trending upwards before Neuheisel left is simply false.

– Regarding the coaching search, here’s the question I’m researching and trying to answer. I haven’t come up with the final answer, yet. Maybe, one of my readers can assist me with this.

“Has a coach of an 8+ win BCS team ever left his team to coach a BCS team that won 2 or less games?”

I haven’t been able to find any examples, yet, in the short time that I’ve been looking. I’m sure that it has happened but I can’t find any examples.

If you can’t say “yes” to that question, it would statistically eliminate Mike Leach, Brian Kelly, Gary Pinkel and Jeff Tedford. Also, it would cast a statistical doubt on whether non-BCS coaches like Chris Petersen, Skip Holtz and Kyle Whittingham would leave their current job.

– Statistics aside, here’s the list of coaches that I believe aren’t coming to UW: Mike Leach (better offers), Jim Mora (committed to Paul Allen’s money), Jeff Tedford (loves his current job), Kyle Whittingham (religious beliefs tie him to the state of Utah), Bronco Mendenhall (religious beliefs tie him to BYU). In my opinion, you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment if you’re holding out for these guys.

– Remember a few weeks ago when we talked about why it was important that UW won at least a few games this year. Top-tier coaches don’t want to walk into a disaster. They’ll walk into a broken situation but not a disaster.

– Dennis Dodd of CBS wrote a pretty funny piece about the hot coaches around the country. He’s got some incorrect information in the UW document but it’s still pretty funny.

– One of my favorite candidates – that seem realistic – is Todd Graham from Tulsa. However, there are two versions of Todd Graham, the Todd Graham with Offensive Coordinator Gus Malzahn and the Todd Graham without Offensive Coordinator Gus Malzahn. If Washington hires Graham, I would hope that they go the extra mile and pay Malzahn head-coach-type-of-money so that he ends up in Seattle with Graham.

– There’s a great commercial playing on KJR right now with UW Head Basketball Coach Lorenzo Romar talking about this year’s team with the song “I’ll take you there” by the Staple Singers playing in the background. Much like the Pittsburgh Pirates of 1979 who adopted the song “We are family”, I think this year’s UW basketball team should officially be called the “I’ll take you there” Huskies. This team is going to be fun to watch. Get behind your team, Dawg fans………..